ISCA Archive Interspeech 2020
ISCA Archive Interspeech 2020

Processes and Consequences of Co-Articulation in Mandarin V1N.(C2)V2 Context: Phonology and Phonetics

Mingqiong Luo

It is well known that in Mandarin Chinese (MC) nasal rhymes, non-high vowels /a/ and /e/ undergo Vowel Nasalization and Backness Feature Specification processes to harmonize with the nasal coda in both manner and place of articulation. Specifically, the vowel is specified with the [+front] feature when followed by the /n/ coda and the [+back] feature when followed by /ŋ/. On the other hand, phonetic experiments in recent researches have shown that in MC disyllabic words, the nasal coda tends to undergo place assimilation in the V1N.C2V2 context and complete deletion in the V1N.V2 context.

These processes raises two questions: firstly, will V1 in V1N.C2V2 contexts also change in its backness feature to harmonize with the assimilated nasal coda? Secondly, will the duration of V1N reduce significantly after nasal coda deletion in the V1N.(G)V context?

A production experiment and a perception experiment were designed to answer these two questions. Results show that the vowel backness feature of V1 is not re-specified despite the appropriate environment, and the duration of V1N is not reduced after nasal deletion. The phonological consequences of these findings will be discussed.